#Best nintendo ds games psp#
Nintendo would surely maintain a lead among younger gamers, ones with less money and a greater addiction to Pokémon but just as the original PlayStation rose to dominance by courting adults and playing off Nintendo as childish, PSP threatened to do the same for handhelds. But this new system promised to make handheld gaming appealing to hardcore game enthusiasts, who generally poo-poohed portables as kids' things. And it was true that PSP would cost more than twice as much as the GBA. Game Boy systems had always triumphed in large part because of their relative affordability.
#Best nintendo ds games portable#
But how could GBA, effectively a souped-up Super NES, hope to compete with a portable system whose power seemed roughly equivalent to a PlayStation 2?įor once, Nintendo's commitment to competitive pricing seemed fairly moot. Even as its consoles carved out an ever-shrinking space for themselves, the Game Boy family kept the company in the black. There was little question in anyone's mind that PSP stood to upend the handheld market, and that spelled doom for Nintendo. The Game Boy Advance offered Nintendo's single shining hope for the future, and even that had a bleak outlook ahead Sony's enormously powerful and tremendously hyped PlayStation Portable was slated to arrive in Japan at the end of 2004 and shortly thereafter in the U.S. Few third parties had any interest in working on GameCube, and the console sold primarily on the strength of Nintendo's own creations. The company's dominance had eroded throughout the 16- and 64-bit eras, and now the GameCube was trailing PlayStation and Xbox as a distant also-ran. The company ended the first act of its tale by striding into the '90s with a hammerlock on nearly the entire world's video game market: The NES/Famicom dominated both America and Japan, and the newly released Game Boy rocketed quickly to an uncontested lead over a portable gaming market that hadn't really even existed prior to its launch.īy 2004, though, Nintendo had sunk to the nadir of its tenure as a first party over the course a turbulent second act. And its story begins, as most third acts do, with things looking darkest.īy autumn of 2004, Nintendo had fallen a long way over the course of 15 years. The Nintendo DS, which launched a decade ago today, offers both.
The Castlevania DS games are also fantastic but will be left out as they are more action-adventure games with RPG elements than full-blown JRPGs.Everybody loves an underdog tale. That said, Chrono Trigger might be at its best on the portable system.
Which games helped make the DS a must-own system? Which ones are still worth playing in 2020? Be it established franchises or new IPs, the DS has plenty of titles with engrossing storylines, charming art styles, and effective combat systems. What are the best JRPGs on the Nintendo DS?ĭisclaimer: As the focus will be on games introduced on the DS, remakes and ports will not be included. RELATED: 10 Hidden Gems On The Nintendo DS And 3DS With the combined might of the PSP and Nintendo DS, the late 2000s were practically a golden era for JRPGs, at least on portable consoles. Regardless of a person's preferred genre, the handheld system offers at least a few dozen worthwhile options, and JRPGs are no exception. Over the span of a decade, the Nintendo DS amassed an incredible library of games.